MANILA - The young Abu Sayyaf bandits who kidnapped and beheaded a school principal in Sulu province are drug addicts and had a foreign terrorist as an adviser, Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno revealed Wednesday.

Puno said the foreign terrorist was a Jemaah Islamiyah operative named Tarik.

The interior secretary made the revelation as he explained how the negotiations for the release of kidnapped school principal Gabriel Canizares went wrong.

Canizares was kidnapped from Barangay Tanum, Patikul town last October 19. His severed head was left by the kidnappers near a gasoline station in downtown Jolo early Monday.

Authorities said a misunderstanding between the kidnappers and the negotiators, including the family of the school principal, could have led to the victim's beheading.

Puno said the kidnapping seemed to be bound to go wrong from the very beginning based on new information gathered by the authorities on the kidnappers' identities.

He said Canizares's kidnappers are below 18 years old and are believed to be drug addicts.

"Our investigators suspect that these minors are drug addicts," Puno said.

He added that the kidnappers had relatives who died during the government's rescue operations for the three kidnapped members of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Sulu.

Bomb factory

Puno said he has ordered the police and requested the Armed Forces of the Philippines to conduct an "all-out" pursuit against Canizares's kidnappers.

He said the young bandits should be immediately stopped to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Puno explained that by saying all-out, he means police and military personnel should conduct "house-to-house" search for the kidnappers.

He said the kidnappers are in a certain area in Patikul town, which is suspected as a source of bombs used in several bomb attacks in Sulu and Basilan provinces.

Puno said the beheading of the school principal and the kidnapping of 4 plywood firm employees signals another possible surge in kidnappings in the southernmost past of Mindanao.

He said the military and the police have been ordered to raise their levels of alert and intensify operations against the Abu Sayyaf and kidnapping groups, including rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.